(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...
- 7/5/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film Ivanhoe will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks’ Tom Stockman. A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here
Here’s a comprehensive look at the life and career of King Baggot
Article by Tom Stockman
They gathered to see the stars at St. Louis Union Station on Saturday March 25th 1910. President Taft had made a stop near the Twentieth Street entrance ten days earlier, but the crowd this day was much larger. Thousands, mostly excited women wearing ankle-length dresses and waving felt pennants lined up hoping for a glimpse, or perhaps...
Here’s a comprehensive look at the life and career of King Baggot
Article by Tom Stockman
They gathered to see the stars at St. Louis Union Station on Saturday March 25th 1910. President Taft had made a stop near the Twentieth Street entrance ten days earlier, but the crowd this day was much larger. Thousands, mostly excited women wearing ankle-length dresses and waving felt pennants lined up hoping for a glimpse, or perhaps...
- 9/28/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film Ivanhoe will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks’ Tom Stockman.
While cleaning out an old barn in New Hampshire recently, a man named Peter Massie discovered an old silent film projector and seven reels of nitrate films hidden in the shadows of a corner of the structure. Among these old reels was a 30-minute 1913 film titled When Lincoln Paid starring Francis Ford (older brother of director John Ford). It was one of six silent films, all presumed lost, in which Ford played Abraham Lincoln. It is stories like this that give hope to silent film fans.
While cleaning out an old barn in New Hampshire recently, a man named Peter Massie discovered an old silent film projector and seven reels of nitrate films hidden in the shadows of a corner of the structure. Among these old reels was a 30-minute 1913 film titled When Lincoln Paid starring Francis Ford (older brother of director John Ford). It was one of six silent films, all presumed lost, in which Ford played Abraham Lincoln. It is stories like this that give hope to silent film fans.
- 9/13/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film Ivanhoe will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks’ Tom Stockman.
By 1913, the American film industry had been around for over twenty years. In 1909 Carl Laemmle, a renegade and maverick movie mogul and film distributor, founded his own company in New York — the Yankee Film Company. Laemmle also started producing movies in Fort Lee, New Jersey that same year. His first company was called the Independent Motion Pictures (Imp) Company, aka Imp Studios. Soon however, Laemmle would be making plans to journey West where he would expand his film production and in 1912 co-founded the Universal Film Manufacturing Co.
By 1913, the American film industry had been around for over twenty years. In 1909 Carl Laemmle, a renegade and maverick movie mogul and film distributor, founded his own company in New York — the Yankee Film Company. Laemmle also started producing movies in Fort Lee, New Jersey that same year. His first company was called the Independent Motion Pictures (Imp) Company, aka Imp Studios. Soon however, Laemmle would be making plans to journey West where he would expand his film production and in 1912 co-founded the Universal Film Manufacturing Co.
- 8/4/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film Ivanhoe will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by Tom Stockman of We Are Movie Geeks.com. This event is Free!
The most popular film actor in the world 100 years ago was a St. Louis native. Literally the first “movie star”, King Baggot was the first actor to have his name above the title and his stardom marked the first time that audiences went to see a movie because a certain actor was in that film. Born in St. Louis in 1879 and raised in a house on Union Boulevard, King Baggot attended CBC High School and at one time worked for the St. Louis Browns in ticket sales. Baggot was tall and handsome, a blue-eyed Irish boy with a distinctive white streak through his dark hair and the subject of much adoring fan mail. It’s hard to overestimate just how popular King Baggot was in his prime. He was heralded as “King of the Movies,” “The Most Photographed Man in the World” and “The Man Whose Face Is As Familiar As The Man In The Moon.” After his acting career faded, King Baggot became a successful director for Universal Studios. Most of his films are long lost and despite his one-time fame, he is now somewhat forgotten, even here in his home town.
The Missouri History Museum will shine a spotlight on the star with The King Baggot Tribute, a celebration of his career. The event will be held on Wednesday, September 28th beginning at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). This is a Free event!
The program will consist a rare screening of the 1913 epic Ivanhoe, which runs 49 minutes. We screened Ivanhoe at the King Baggot Tribute that was part of The St. Louis International Film Festival in November of 2014. That time, we rented a 35mm print of the film from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It had Dutch intertitles, so I had to translate them, from the podium, while the rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra accompanied the film. This time, we have transferred the film to digital format and have burned English intertitles over the Dutch ones.
Based Sir Walter Scott’s 1820 novel of romance and medievalism. Ivanhoe was filmed at Chepstow Castle in Wales, on top of cliffs overlooking the River Wye and was the first example of an American studio sending a cast and crew to Europe to film at a remote location. St. Louis native King Baggot plays Ivanhoe, the Saxon Knight who returns from the Holy Lands to England. There he teams up with Robin Hood to rescue his father Sir Cedric, who has been captured by the evil Prince John. Leah Baird plays Rebecca, the Jewish maiden who loves Ivanhoe and the film’s director Herbert Brenon co-stars as Isaac of York. The rest of the large cast was made up of local Welsh actors. The lively and ambitious Ivanhoe, filled with pageantry, lavish sets, costumed horses, epic battle scenes and swordfights was a box-office smash in 1913 and made King Baggot an international star.
Don’t miss the The King Baggot Tribute September 28th!
A Facebook Invite for the event can be found Here
https://www.facebook.com/events/1764545990458351/
The post The King Baggot Tribute Returns to St. Louis – The Missouri History Museum Sept. 28th appeared first on We Are Movie Geeks.
The most popular film actor in the world 100 years ago was a St. Louis native. Literally the first “movie star”, King Baggot was the first actor to have his name above the title and his stardom marked the first time that audiences went to see a movie because a certain actor was in that film. Born in St. Louis in 1879 and raised in a house on Union Boulevard, King Baggot attended CBC High School and at one time worked for the St. Louis Browns in ticket sales. Baggot was tall and handsome, a blue-eyed Irish boy with a distinctive white streak through his dark hair and the subject of much adoring fan mail. It’s hard to overestimate just how popular King Baggot was in his prime. He was heralded as “King of the Movies,” “The Most Photographed Man in the World” and “The Man Whose Face Is As Familiar As The Man In The Moon.” After his acting career faded, King Baggot became a successful director for Universal Studios. Most of his films are long lost and despite his one-time fame, he is now somewhat forgotten, even here in his home town.
The Missouri History Museum will shine a spotlight on the star with The King Baggot Tribute, a celebration of his career. The event will be held on Wednesday, September 28th beginning at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). This is a Free event!
The program will consist a rare screening of the 1913 epic Ivanhoe, which runs 49 minutes. We screened Ivanhoe at the King Baggot Tribute that was part of The St. Louis International Film Festival in November of 2014. That time, we rented a 35mm print of the film from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It had Dutch intertitles, so I had to translate them, from the podium, while the rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra accompanied the film. This time, we have transferred the film to digital format and have burned English intertitles over the Dutch ones.
Based Sir Walter Scott’s 1820 novel of romance and medievalism. Ivanhoe was filmed at Chepstow Castle in Wales, on top of cliffs overlooking the River Wye and was the first example of an American studio sending a cast and crew to Europe to film at a remote location. St. Louis native King Baggot plays Ivanhoe, the Saxon Knight who returns from the Holy Lands to England. There he teams up with Robin Hood to rescue his father Sir Cedric, who has been captured by the evil Prince John. Leah Baird plays Rebecca, the Jewish maiden who loves Ivanhoe and the film’s director Herbert Brenon co-stars as Isaac of York. The rest of the large cast was made up of local Welsh actors. The lively and ambitious Ivanhoe, filled with pageantry, lavish sets, costumed horses, epic battle scenes and swordfights was a box-office smash in 1913 and made King Baggot an international star.
Don’t miss the The King Baggot Tribute September 28th!
A Facebook Invite for the event can be found Here
https://www.facebook.com/events/1764545990458351/
The post The King Baggot Tribute Returns to St. Louis – The Missouri History Museum Sept. 28th appeared first on We Are Movie Geeks.
- 6/13/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Joan Crawford in 'Mildred Pierce.' 'Mildred Pierce' review: Very entertaining soap opera Time has a way of making some films seem grander than they really are. A good example is Mildred Pierce, the 1945 black-and-white melodrama directed by Casablanca's Michael Curtiz, and that won star Joan Crawford a Best Actress Oscar. Mildred Pierce is in no way, shape, or form great art, even though it's certainly not a bad film. In fact, as a soap opera it's quite entertaining – no, make that very entertaining; and entertainment is a quality that can stand on its own. (The problem in recent decades is that cinema has become nothing but entertainment.) In the case of Mildred Pierce, the entertainment is formulaic and rather predictable – but in an enjoyable, campy sort of way. Unbridled Hollywood melodrama Now, what makes Mildred Pierce a melodrama is something known as the Dumbest Possible Action – Dpa for short.
- 12/12/2015
- by Dan Schneider
- Alt Film Guide
The King Baggot Tribute will take place Friday, November 14th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium beginning at 7pm as part of this year’s St. Louis Intenational FIlm Festival. The program will consist a rare 35mm screening of the 1913 epic Ivanhoe starring King Baggot with live music accompaniment by the Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra. Ivanhoe will be followed by an illustrated lecture on the life and films of King Baggot presented by Tom Stockman, editor here at We Are Movie Geeks. After that will screen the influential silent western Tumbleweeds (1925), considered to be one of King Baggot’s finest achievements as a director. Tumbleweeds will feature live piano accompaniment by Matt Pace.
Here’s a comprehensive look at the life and career of King Baggot
Article by Tom Stockman
They gathered to see the stars at St. Louis Union Station on Saturday March 25th 1910. President Taft had...
Here’s a comprehensive look at the life and career of King Baggot
Article by Tom Stockman
They gathered to see the stars at St. Louis Union Station on Saturday March 25th 1910. President Taft had...
- 11/14/2014
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
“Gurth the Swineherd , do you not recognize me?”
“Ivanhoe ! My young master”
It’s been said that 75% of all silent films are lost – scrapped for their silver nitrate content, destroyed by fire, left to decompose, or simply abandoned by an industry so lacking in foresight that it neither knew nor cared about their own products value to the future. In the case of the silent films that St. Louis native King Baggot starred in, that number is closer to 99%. Baggot likely appeared in over 300 films during his most active period 1909 to 1916, mostly one-reelers (1000 feet of film running around 16 minutes). When Cinema St. Louis and I teamed up to plan the King Baggot Tribute night coming up November 14th, we knew we wanted to show one film featuring one of his performances and another that he directed. We chose to represent his directing career with the 1925 western Tumbleweeds starring William S. Hart.
“Ivanhoe ! My young master”
It’s been said that 75% of all silent films are lost – scrapped for their silver nitrate content, destroyed by fire, left to decompose, or simply abandoned by an industry so lacking in foresight that it neither knew nor cared about their own products value to the future. In the case of the silent films that St. Louis native King Baggot starred in, that number is closer to 99%. Baggot likely appeared in over 300 films during his most active period 1909 to 1916, mostly one-reelers (1000 feet of film running around 16 minutes). When Cinema St. Louis and I teamed up to plan the King Baggot Tribute night coming up November 14th, we knew we wanted to show one film featuring one of his performances and another that he directed. We chose to represent his directing career with the 1925 western Tumbleweeds starring William S. Hart.
- 11/10/2014
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The most popular film actor in the world 100 years ago was a St. Louis native. Literally the first “movie star”, King Baggot was the first actor to have his name above the title and his stardom marked the first time that audiences went to see a movie because a certain actor was in that film. Born in St. Louis in 1879 and raised in a house on Union Boulevard, King Baggot attended CBC High School and at one time worked for the St. Louis Browns in ticket sales. Baggot was tall and handsome, a blue-eyed Irish boy with a distinctive white streak through his dark hair and the subject of much adoring fan mail. It’s hard to overestimate just how popular King Baggot was in his prime. He was heralded as “King of the Movies,” “The Most Photographed Man in the World” and “The Man Whose Face Is As Familiar...
- 10/9/2014
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
While cleaning out an old barn in New Hampshire recently, a man named Peter Massie discovered an old silent film projector and seven reels of nitrate films hidden in the shadows of a corner of the structure. Among these old reels was a 30-minute 1913 film titled When Lincoln Paid starring Francis Ford (older brother of director John Ford). It was one of six silent films, all presumed lost, in which Ford played Abraham Lincoln. It is stories like this that give hope to silent film fans. 75 per cent of movies from the silent era have been lost to decay or neglect, but when it comes to the over 200 movies that St. Louis native King Baggot acted in between 1909 and 1921, that number is closer to 100%. Here’s a look at Absinthe, a lost film from 100 years ago that I wish someone would find.
Absinthe is a distilled, highly alcoholic (90-148 proof...
Absinthe is a distilled, highly alcoholic (90-148 proof...
- 6/2/2014
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
By 1913, the American film industry had been around for over twenty years. In 1909 Carl Laemmle, a renegade and maverick movie mogul and film distributor, founded his own company in New York — the Yankee Film Company. Laemmle also started producing movies in Fort Lee, New Jersey that same year. His first company was called the Independent Motion Pictures (Imp) Company, aka Imp Studios. Soon however, Laemmle would be making plans to journey West where he would expand his film production and in 1912 co-founded the Universal Film Manufacturing Co., or Universal Film Company - the precursor to Universal Pictures in Hollywood. The studio had its sights set on bigger and better things than the one and two-reel shorts that Hollywood had been grinding out. European studios were producing big, ambitious feature productions and Universal felt the need to compete.
Sir Walter Scott’s classic novel Ivanhoe was first published in 1820. The story...
Sir Walter Scott’s classic novel Ivanhoe was first published in 1820. The story...
- 1/23/2014
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’: TCM schedule on August 20, 2013 (photo: Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’) See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel: Oscar Winner Makes History.” 3:00 Am Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). Director: David Butler. Cast: Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Eddie Cantor, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly, Don Wilson, Spike Jones, Henry Armetta, Leah Baird, Willie Best, Monte Blue, James Burke, David Butler, Stanley Clements, William Desmond, Ralph Dunn, Frank Faylen, James Flavin, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Paul Harvey, Mark Hellinger, Brandon Hurst, Charles Irwin, Noble Johnson, Mike Mazurki, Fred Kelsey, Frank Mayo, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Treen, Doodles Weaver. Bw-127 mins. 5:15 Am Janie (1944). Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton,...
- 8/21/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Bette Davis movies: TCM schedule on August 14 (photo: Bette Davis in ‘Dangerous,’ with Franchot Tone) See previous post: “Bette Davis Eyes: They’re Watching You Tonight.” 3:00 Am Parachute Jumper (1933). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Harold Huber, Leo Carrillo, Thomas E. Jackson, Lyle Talbot, Leon Ames, Stanley Blystone, Reginald Barlow, George Chandler, Walter Brennan, Pat O’Malley, Paul Panzer, Nat Pendleton, Dewey Robinson, Tom Wilson, Sheila Terry. Bw-72 mins. 4:30 Am The Girl From 10th Avenue (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Ian Hunter, Colin Clive, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Phillip Reed, Katharine Alexander, Helen Jerome Eddy, Bill Elliott, Edward McWade, André Cheron, Wedgwood Nowell, John Quillan, Mary Treen. Bw-69 mins. 6:00 Am Dangerous (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Dick Foran, Walter Walker, Richard Carle, George Irving, Pierre Watkin, Douglas Wood,...
- 8/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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